Talk:Totalitarianism

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1. Why does this article say that the Nazis were right-wing?
Because that is the consensus of reliable sources, in this case historians and political scientists. Almost all historical and present-day academic literature places the Nazi Party on the far-right of the traditional left-right spectrum, which in turn is the most common short-form classification used in political science. The Nazis themselves attacked both left-wing and traditional right-wing politicians and movements in Germany as being traitors to Germany. While the Nazi regime's economic policies are very different from those of present-day right-wing parties that adhere to classical liberal or neoliberal positions (which advocate, e.g., a highly deregulated, privatized economic environment), Nazi economic policy was typical of the early to mid-twentieth century far-right, and indeed most political currents of the time, in that it embraced interventionist economics. The Nazi Party absorbed the far-right reactionary monarchist and nationalist German National People's Party into its membership in 1933. The Nazi Party also held good relations with openly right-wing political movements in Europe, such as the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, whose leader Gil-Robles was a guest at the 1933 Nazi Party Nuremberg rally and sought to model his movement upon the Nazi Party.
2. But the word "socialist" is right in their name!
Many political entities have names that can be misleading. Consider, for example, the Holy Roman Empire (a confederation of mainly German territories during the Middle Ages and the early modern period) and North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (a totalitarian dictatorship). Historically, several right-wing figures used the term "socialism" to mean something very different from what would be understood by traditional left-wing socialism, referring simply to the broader concept of collectivism and anti-individualism. The prominent French reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras famously said "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well-made glove fits a beautiful hand". Maurras's views influenced fascism. Oswald Spengler's ideal of "Prussian Socialism" directly influenced Nazism, and Spengler promoted it as a member of the far-right Conservative Revolutionary movement. The usage of the word "socialism" by the Nazis is different from the common usage of the term "socialism", which refers to an economic philosophy involving advocacy for social ownership of the means of production.
In the case of the Nazi party, the phrase "national socialist" was a nationalist response to the rise of socialism in Europe by offering a redefinition of "socialism" to refer to the promotion of the interests of the nation, as opposed to ideas of individual self-interest. But there was no policy of social ownership of the means of production. The Nazis did talk about capitalism being bad, but they defined it as a Jewish-originated economic philosophy based on individualism that promoted plutocracy in the interest of the Jews, at the expense of non-Jewish nations and races. This was put in contrast to the Nazis' conception of socialism, which was done in order to win over people attracted to anti-capitalist and socialist ideas to their cause. They rejected ideas of equality and working class solidarity, instead advocating for social hierarchy and national strength. This article sums it up well.
3. Were the Nazis actually a capitalist movement?
The answer depends on the context and definition of capitalism. Ideologically, Hitler in private was just as opposed to the ethos of capitalism as he was in public as a politician; he regarded the capitalist ethos as being self-centred individualism that was incompatible with nationalism. Furthermore, in both public and private Hitler regarded capitalism as being created by the Jews for their own interests. The Nazis in public and in private held contempt for bourgeois culture in liberal capitalist societies - as they associated such bourgeois culture with a cosmopolitan, liberal, and decadent lifestyle that was incompatible with the Nazis' ideal of a nationalist martial ethic of disciplined soldiers who were collectively committed to the Fatherland above any individual interest. So, ideologically, Nazism held strong antipathy to capitalism. However, at the same time, Hitler and the Nazis endorsed private property and private enterprise and did not challenge the market economy, which was important to their accrual of power because it avoided antagonizing industrialists and aristocrats. The Nazis themselves claimed that "true socialism" did not involve the Marxian opposition to private property. But if capitalism is defined in a minimum way as involving the support of the existence of private property, private enterprise, and a market economy, then from that minimum definition, the Nazis could be considered as endorsing a capitalist economy.
4. The proper English name for the Nazi Party is the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). "Nazi" is an abbreviated term, so why does the article not use the proper name?
Because English Wikipedia uses the common name for things, and the common name for the NSDAP in English is the "Nazi Party".
5. I made an offhand comment about it and somebody just came along and deleted it! What should I do?
Nothing. See this discussion where the community came to a consensus that we have entertained the numerous questions and claims about the Nazis being left-wing enough, and that continued engagement with people pushing this line of reasoning is not helpful to the article.
6. That doesn't seem very fair. Don't Wikipedia policies require editors to assume good faith? What if somebody posts that position here with a really good argument?
See the following links, all of which are to discussions about this very question over time. Any argument someone thinks is novel has already been made, been responded to, and failed to convince anyone. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
7. But what if I find a large number of very reliable sources all claiming that Nazism is left-wing?
Then you will be more than welcome to show them to us, so that we can see that they are very reliable and that they assert that Nazism is a left-wing ideology. If they are, then we will change the article.

pic in the lead

i added a lot of new content to the page, now i want to change the pic in the lead: there's a us propaganda poster "your lot in a totalitarian state" with both nazi and soviet flags, i'll upload it some time later

my objection to the one which is in the lead now is that they aren't equal there, cuz stalin takes more attention, first of all, because it shows only stalin in the previews, and secondly, cuz we read left to right and pay more attention to things we percieve first; in mobile version, stalin is above hitler

i think the poster is a good illustration cuz its both true and at the same time illustrates the origins of the concept which are also described in the article 2.63.182.29 (talk) 18:22, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The fringe sources wich i had removed is contradictory to the above sources and statements. If you feel it is supported by the majority sources add this on the body and not in the picture as it is over cited there and currently a mess. see WP:UNDUE Shadow4dark (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
why are they fringe all of a sudden? and how exactly are they contradictory? 178.34.158.90 (talk) 19:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
It is debunked by others sources as books by Hannah Arendt, if you really want add such statements bring multiple sources. Shadow4dark (talk) 19:17, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Ancient totalitarianism

Guys, I oppose putting Mauryan Empire under totalitarianism. It was fully secular, with Ashoka even spreading Buddhism throughout the ancient South Asia. I suggest it be either amended or deleted. It is factually incorrect. 2409:4060:ECC:A50D:A543:931B:9D79:1493 (talk) 04:21, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

"It was fully secular" So were the Marxist-Leninist atheist regimes of the 20th century. While some totalitarian states have enforced state religions, totalitarianism is not religious in nature. Dimadick (talk) 10:19, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

AI image at top

The image on the top of page "your lot in a totalitarian state" is likely AI generated. Reverse image searches show no reference to it before 2025. While I don't believe there's any problem using AI images in articles, the image's commons page claims it to be from 1942, but this is almost certainly not true. Should be acknowledged as AI in the caption or replaced with an actual poster from the time period. EndlessVideoGames (talk) 00:14, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

The file page lists the sources the images are taken from. This is a false alarm. Yue🌙 01:19, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:31, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Totalitarianism does not require a dictator.

Institutional totalitarianism is a thing and it was the political system in the late stage Real Socialist states of the Soviet Bloc. If totalitarianism was authoritarian, it would simply fall apart after the death of the dictator. However institutional totalitarianism is highly stable and a new leader is elected (by the party elite), the old one does not even have to die and can choose to retire (happened in PRL - Polish People’s Republic- more than once). Institutional totalitarianism likes to prop its legitimacy with democratic rituals too - see: modern Iran - in the Soviet Bloc - we had elections too. Oh, and totalitarian systems don’t fit anywhere on the American political spectrum. They are an antithesis of the very existence of the political spectrum. Your American “consensus” stems from your complete lack of understanding of Soviet / totalitarian ontology. Totalitarianism is concerned with neither ideological consistency, nor objective reality. The Party is the only source of truth, applied retroactively. If the Party says on Tuesday that the sky is orange it means the sky was always orange. If it says it was green on Wednesday, the party did not change its mind. The sky was always green. There is no equivalent to this ontology / mindset anywhere on the political spectrum of any natural Enlightenment-based political ontology, which accepts existence of objective reality and a responsibility towards the constituency to maintain (any-some) ideological consistency. To this end the Real Socialism of 1980s was much closer in practical application of power to Gentilism (classical Fascism) than to Marxism, even though it still billed itself Marxism-Leninism. But labels don’t matter in totalitarianism. Another thing that is near-impossible to understand to an average Westerner who never experienced actual totalitarianism. However no totalitarian system would ever put itself anywhere on a political spectrum, because that would be equal to the admission that a political spectrum is a valid concept, instead of an aberration that requires psychiatric hospitalization of a person denying reality (having opinions opposite to the Party truth). To that end we defined German Fascism as an error in the teleological pursuit of the natural order: the march of History towards Communism. This error was the result of the natural intellectual and spiritual inferiority of the Westerners as compared to the “glorious Slavic people”… This line of reasoning did three things: denied the validity of the idea of political opposition, presented the Slavic supremacy as the inevitability of the History and created a MORAL OBLIGATION to invade and subjugate the West, to root out the “colonizer gene” from the mankind’s gene pool (and prevent resurgence of Fascism). The above should also help you understand why Russians are looking for “Nazis” in Ukraine. They are not looking for literal Nazis as Westerners understand this word. They are aiming to root out Western influence, which in Soviet (and now Russian) ideological framework is equivalent to “Fascist colonialism”. 172.8.18.255 (talk) 10:57, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

This is all very interesting, however we are not a forum. Are there specific ('X to Y') changes you're looking to make, and do you have reliable sources that support the changes? We can't have WP:OR. — Czello (music) 11:14, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
You need to expand the definition of totalitarianism to include institutional totalitarianism. Unlike truly authoritarian regime, like Spanish Franco regime for example, that collapsed into democracy after Franco’s death, the power of institutional totalitarianism is distributed and immune to simple collapse due to the change of leadership. The source is the entire history of the Soviet Bloc, and Communist China. In fact China is a peak evolution of institutional totalitarianism, as it reached a self-sustaining state economically and politically, without giving up an inch of power to the people. And it did it by implementing state-controlled, ideologically aligned capitalism, an idea borrowed from Gentile and Mussolini, not Karl Marx. The rest does not really require any sources, only 5 minutes of logical thinking: totalitarian leadership does not answer to anyone and it is focused on staying in power. Therefore ideological consistency, a critical component of political identity in a democratic system, is completely irrelevant under totalitarianism. In fact when totalitarians consolidate power, ideologues who helped to destabilize the previous system and usher the new one, tend to all end up in mass graves (or gulags and then mass graves). However if you need a prominent name attached to this truth, obvious to every survivor of 20th century totalitarian systems like me, Yuri Bezmenov is your guy. But that is a side note. The main point is that totalitarianism can exist (and in fact: thrives) without dictatorship. Any totalitarian system that survives past its revolutionary phase (and Soviet Union did, so did China) needs to figure out how to transfer power peacefully and how to distribute power locally, while staying in total control. I know that for engagement purposes Adi and Yosi and Mao are very “sexy” topics, but the mundane truth is Soviet Block survived Stalin and had multiple (bland bureaucratic) leaders afterwards and China stays totalitarian to this very day. 172.8.18.255 (talk) 19:15, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
The whole point of totalitarianism is that these states cannot establish fixed institutions that regulate political power. The Soviet bloc, it could be said, failed to institutionalise, but everything points to China moving in that direction. TheUzbek (talk) 07:19, 5 January 2026 (UTC)
Authoritarianism doesn't mean dictatorship. Authoritarianism just means a lack of free and fair elections or checks and balances. One-party countries and illiberal democracies are also considered authoritarian. An autocracy, like a dictatorship or an absolute monarchy, is a separate concept from authoritarianism. I think you're conflating the two.

For totalitarianism to function, it needs the level of control afforded to it by authoritarianism. If you still have room for competing political powers, then you clearly don't have the power to enforce conformity to a single cultic worldview because there's active and powerful dissent. Authoritarianism is thus a prerequisite of totalitarianism.

You can think of authoritarianism as the negative form of totalitarianism. While authoritarian regimes censor opposition, totalitarian ones push a coherent and singular worldview. While authoritarian regimes punish dissent, totalitarian ones demand assent. So totalitarianism is a more advanced form of authoritarianism where the state itself becomes something akin to a religious high control group. Authoritarianism merely means the government holds nigh absolute political power. Totalitarianism goes beyond merely holding all of the power; it uses its absolute power to brainwash citizens into a rigid ideological framework, giving it absolute sociocultural power on top of political power. 2601:486:100:9780:3493:1898:FEE9:855A (talk) 05:17, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

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